MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2024
Kishore Amati
Herald Café: What is keeping you busy currently?
Kabir Bedi: The year that went by kept me very busy: I did five films, that included ‘Mohenjo Daro’, a Telugu film, a Malayalam film for which I received the best villain award, an Italian-English film and a film from the West Indies. This year, I am trying to take as much time off as possible, to get some writing projects done. Other than that, I am doing a tour of the US starting mid-March, with one of the great disciples of the late Jagjit Singh, in memory of the legendary singer and Om Puri. Having had a international career all my life, based in the US, Asia and Europe, etc, there’s always somebody somewhere that wants something from me, which is very nice at this stage of my life. I haven’t really firmed up too much; I am trying to keep things as clear as possible to get stuff done. Of course, things come up and if you get an offer that you cannot refuse, then you cannot refuse it. But I have refused a few offers that I could refuse, which is also nice.
HC: You have been enjoying quite a bit of fandom in Europe. What has the experience been like?
KB: What launched me to stardom in Europe was my TV series called ‘Sandokan’. It became the most successful TV show in television history in Italy and remains unbeaten till date. It is nice not to be only known in a country, but also to be seen as a cultural icon because of the portrayal of this character, ‘Sandokan’. I must admit, I am the lucky one because Sandokan was created through the labour of the entire team of writers, directors, cinematographers, etc, but I reaped the benefit because I was Sandokan, I was the one seen on TV. The miracle of that, for me, is that the success has continued for 40 years. Even now, they play it regularly on TV. So, everyone, from grandmother to grandchildren, knows you. I do not know of any TV show in the world which, 40 years later, seems as contemporary as the day it was released. That opened the gates of the West for me.
HC: You recently played the emperor Shah Jahan in a play, titled, ‘Taj’, by Canada’s award-winning playwright John Murrell. What was the experience like?
KB: It was a phenomenal play of the standard of a Broadway production. I am actually working to get that here towards the end of this year or the beginning of the next year. The experience was extraordinary, a) because I love theatre, and b) the writing of this play was extraordinarily good. The writing was so beautiful and poetic, and yet it was prose, that even though I was on stage for 90 minutes straight, if I knew the beginning of the line I knew the whole paragraph. That is how beautifully the words flowed.
HC: You also played Shah Jahan in the Bollywood film ‘Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story’ earlier in your career. How was playing the same character in theatre, different?
KB: It was an extraordinary experience because I had delved into the character and lived it for so many months while shooting for the film. Then to do it again, this time on the stage, makes me feel like I know Shah Jahan fairly well by now (laughs). The setting of both, the film and the play, was practically the same. Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb. He (Shah Jahan) could see the Taj Mahal across the river from the prison but he couldn’t go there. So that is the situation that the play and the film deals with. The biggest difference was that when Shah Jahan went into being the younger version of my character, they had a younger actor playing the character in the film. In the play, even though there is a younger Shah Jahan, that entire narrative is through me. Even when the younger Shah Jahan comes on, he comes on as a part of a Kathak troupe that actually performs what he is talking about. When the older Shah Jahan goes into the role of the younger Shah Jahan, even though outwardly he appears older, his body language changes and he becomes the younger Shah Jahan talking about the past. It’s more in-depth.
HC: In what capacity are you participating in Difficult Dialogues 2017?
KB: Difficult Dialogues takes up one major theme of national importance and people from various disciplines focus on this. I am hosting the final session, ‘India: Health Of The Nation’ that will examine the conduct of private healthcare in India and explore what needs to happen to strengthen the country’s public health system. It is a very distinguished panel consisting of Sachin Pilot, Farooq Abdullah, Pavan K Varma, Surjit Bhalla and Varun Sahni. My job is to look at the wider picture of health in India and to see what I can draw from these brilliant minds on to the subject.
